Published on the 27/11/2014 | Written by Beverley Head
A survey of 1000 senior executives across Asia Pacific, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, has identified a mismatch between chief information officers and other C-suite executives…
A very healthy 83 per cent of Asia Pacific senior executives believe that a CIO should drive innovation across a business. However, only 13 percent believe that IT is, as yet, a driver of innovation in their company.
The survey, conducted earlier this year canvassed the opinions of a small number of executives in both Australia and New Zealand.
The Australian executives were particularly damning about their organisation’s capability to innovate when compared to their more optimistic regional peers, and fewer than one in five (19 percent) were in any way impressed by the innovation capability displayed by the Australian Government. This compared very poorly to the 49 percent average approval rating Governments achieved across Asia Pacific.
However, it should be noted that the survey was conducted before the October release of Australia’s innovation and competitiveness agenda.
Besides critiquing Governments’ innovation performance the report; The Future CIO, which way is up? also identified a mismatch between what CEOs want from their CIOs, and what CIOs think they need to deliver.
According to the study CEOs believe CIOs need to develop a greater understanding of the business; learn to think strategically; and develop a greater awareness of broader industry trends.
CIOs by contrast think where they need to lift their game is being able to create a better business case to secure IT investment, and keeping up to date with technology advances. The report warns that “this blind focus on technology may be misplaced” – it could also explain why senior executives believe their CIO’s greatest contribution in the last 12 months has come from efficiency improvements rather than innovation.
But a greater focus on innovation will be required in the future as three in four CEOs believe CIOs should also generate revenues. The only way to achieve that will be to roll out innovative technology based products and services.
The report, which was sponsored by Hitachi Data Systems, also asked executives what their IT focus would be in 2015. Cloud computing took the top slot followed by data analytics.
